We Oughta Know
by thequeenwillruletheboard
Summary: "It's not a silly little moment; it's not the storm before the calm. This is the deep and dyin' breath of this love that we've been working on."
1. Part One: Midoriko and Magatsuhi

**AN:** This is an eleven part series of ficlets inspired by John Mayer's "Slow Dancing in a Burning Room," each one written for a different pairing.

 **Part One:** Midoriko/Magatsuhi

.

 _It's not a silly little moment;_

 _It's not the storm before the calm._

 _._

She landed lightly on her feet, the last demon in the horde falling to pieces behind her. On what she stood, she had no idea; a black void stretched for infinity in every direction. Not for the first time, she wondered if she was trapped in an edgeless oblivion or merely blind.

As soon as the thought occurred to her, a light ignited behind her. Blinking the shock from her eyes, she focused on the form encased in the light, shimmering from a light pink to a deep violet. In some moments, she swore it had a face marred by demonic markings, and in other moments she swore it served as a mirror to her own face.

"Midoriko," it growled. "Are you ready?"

She sighed and took up her fighting stance, readying her sword. "Yes, Magatsuhi. Whenever you are."

Out of common courtesy, she waited for him to reassemble himself. It would make no difference if they started the fight again in a second or in a decade: eternity still held them prisoner.

For a long pregnant moment, they stood fully intact and peaceful in front of one another. They both knew in a moment, they'd be engaged in battle once again until one of them fell. However, each of them longed for peace and granted it to the other.

Bathed in the glow of his light, she smiled and searched for his ever-fading eyes, almost comfortable in his embrace. She supposed this hell was of her own making, a home she had created – her death had been imminent, so in that moment she had torn out her own heart to hide from its weakness.

With a deep breath, she nodded to him and swung her sword.

.

 _This is is the deep and dyin' breath of_

 _This love that we've been workin' on._

.


	2. Part Two: Onigumo and Kikyou

**Part 2:** Onigumo/Kikyou

* * *

He swore the paralysis in his arms would kill him if his injuries didn't. The only longing he still possessed consumed him: the never-ending desire to _touch her_ to _claim her,_ to take the rough palms of his hands and remind himself what smooth skin felt like, tasted like.

Muscle control remained in his mouth and his free eye, but he had learned to speak very little; she tended to speak more when he stayed silent. He relied on his sight to communicate instead, tracing the flow of her hair and the curve of her lip over and over so much that he swore he could draw it in the cavern ceiling from mere memory.

Today, she hummed a tune under her breath absentmindedly as she tended to his deformities. With every passing day, he watched her become happier, buoyancy surfacing where she had carried her burdens before. Anger seeped into his wounds, both physical and emotional. How dare she become lighter when every day he became heavier, weighted with his affection – no, _obsession_ – and his immobile body.

He stared at her, wondering what in the world could be happening to her outside the cave, desperate for any sort of whisper or clue. This woman was a damn enigma, frustrating him with her refusal to answer any questions or give away anything beyond what he could see in front of him. Maybe the brat would tell him, if he could only get her alone.

Finally, after minutes of silent begging, she looked back to his face, catching his eye. Something about the intensity with which he looked her way entrapped her, keeping her still with bated breath. Her eyes flickered up and down his marred face, studying it for once as he had done for hers so many times.

Onigumo's sunken chest ached with the wish that time would freeze, that amber would solidify around them both, against all resignation to the truth: he would never be able to move to her, and she would never be able to stay with him. So, he kept her trapped in the cage of his heart for a few more moments, then broke eye contact, freeing her to live her life as she was always meant to.

.

 _Can't seem to hold you like I want to_

 _So I can feel you in my arms._

.


	3. Part Three: Inuyasha and Kikyou

**Part 3:** Inuyasha/Kikyou

She'd staggered from the middle of the forest to the steps at the top of the shrine, unsure how her body had held out for so long. Part of her also wondered how her arm stayed attached; it hardly responded to any commands, and the dripping heat of blood running down her side and staining her clothes reminded her that with every passing moment, her life was coming to a close. The wound had been inflicted just after sunrise, and now the sun beat down on her shivering skin from directly above her, indicating her limited lifespan.

Kikyou almost let herself fall to the ground, defeated, when she heard a loud explosion behind her, and emerging from it, a red and silver blur. The cackle that had mentally haunted her for the last few hours echoed through the forest for everyone to hear, and that's when the gleam of it caught her attention: the pink light of the jewel refracting onto the tree trunks.

A wind of strength hit her bones, and she rose to full firing position, her arm miraculously responding to her needs. Bloodstained fingers pulled the bow taut, and her eyesight sharpened as the fletching aligned with her sightline.

Releasing the arrow came more from exhaustion than aim, but she forced herself to stay rigid so it would fly true, straight toward the heart of the man who had betrayed her. If she had the energy, she would have screamed so loud that the sun itself would have faded in her wake: _I trusted you! How could you?!_

He turned to her long before it hit, his eyes sad and wounded. A sinking feeling settled in her gut; how had everything gone so _wrong?_

The tempo of her heartbeat slowed, taking the world around her with it. As she looked into his eyes, she could see everything – the night he spared her life, the day she spared his, the months they'd spent together, the kiss on the dock, their only kiss – then the arrow struck with a resounding _thump_ and she remembered.

He reached for the jewel, _rather than for her,_ and she knew everything had been undone. She had put her faith in him, but with a pang in her gut, she realized that he'd always had more faith in failure than he had for her. He'd ripped away their kiss with his claws, rewound time with his words, and killed her, just as she'd killed him.

.

 _How dare you say it's nothing to me,_

 _Baby, you're the only light I ever saw._

.


	4. Part Four: Naraku and Sango

**Part Four:** Naraku/Sango

* * *

With disbelieving eyes, Sango glared down at the form of the a human man, newly revealed from beneath a baboon's pelt and propped up on the weapon she had armed him with. Her gut coiled in anguish – the handsome Lord Kagewaki, her benevolent saving grace, had really been _Naraku_ all along. She'd been dreaming of her greatest enemy, longing to return and thank him, and in her most intimate thoughts, asking to stay by his side.

"Did you kill him?" she snarled through gritted teeth, fists clenched and poised to fight.

Burning scarlet eyes bored into her, a smirk winding onto his face. "Kagewaki Hitomi… Now, that's who I am. The lord of this castle."

The truth struck her, a crushing blow that deflated her lungs: Naraku had been Kagewaki all along, since before she'd ever met him. He orchestrated it all, manipulating a demon puppet into creating his own alibi. Her body and mind swirled in confusion, turning affection into hatred and hatred into affection.

She hadn't noticed she dived off the roof, blade at the ready, until she was halfway to the ground. He locked eyes with her and grinned, the handsome face of her savior warming her from her toes, and for a moment, it appeared as though he were opening his arms to embrace her. _No!_ A voice in the back of her head screamed in protest and it tore through her larynx: " _Die!"_

His eyes widened, seeming to share her surprise at her change of heart. He ducked evasively from the hidden blade she thrust his way, and used the untransformed Tetsusaiga to block her maneuver, effectively shattering her blade in the process. With another swing of the sword, he sliced across her abdomen and sent her rolling back to the steps of the castle.

After a still moment, she propped herself shakily on her wrists, looking up into his face. He moved to approach her with a curious look on his face. She could not tell if it was pity or fondness, which surprised her less than the _lack of triumph_ she read on his features. A feeble hope in her chest wondered, even though posing as Kagewaki, if part of him had cared about her too.

Seeing that in his face, she resigned to die right there in the courtyard. The irony of her resolve the last time she'd been there sparked a small smile. He furrowed his eyebrows in response, stepping forward to save her or to kill her – which it would be, she had no clue.

.

 _We're going down,_

 _And you can see it too._

 _We're going down_

 _And you know that we're doomed._

.


	5. Part Five: Sesshomaru and Kagura

**Part Five:** Sesshomaru/Kagura

* * *

Kagura landed in front of Sesshomaru, a hell-bird knocking the wind out of everything in her vicinity. He reached for the hilt of the Tokijin, simultaneous with her raising her fan. Foolishly, he had positioned himself closer to the edge of the cliff where an attack from her could knock him off if he let his guard down.

"Take your hand off your sword," she said. "I didn't come here to fight."

He narrowed his eyes, noticing the close proximity between them – much too close for the type of fighting Kagura employed. She had put herself within range of his blade, rather than staying further away where she would have kept the advantage.

"I want to make a deal." So that was it.

Curiosity got the better of him, so he decided to indulge her. "A deal?"

She brandished two pieces of the Sacred Jewel, glittering under the vast starlight. "You know what these are? I'll give them to you. In return, kill Naraku. Free me from his grip."

She had to be stupid, or desperate, or both to suggest such an alliance. He could see her vibrating with trepidation, eyes flicking from side to side watching for the presence of her malevolent master.

"Unfortunately, I don't have any interest in the Sacred Jewel. If you wish to be free from Naraku, take those shards and use them yourself to destroy him."

"Are you afraid of Naraku?" she hissed, obviously grasping for some weakness to hold onto.

 _No, but you are._ "I am simply under no obligation to help you. If you do not possess the resolve for rebellion on your own, then don't even consider it."

Kagura's eyes widened, understanding that there would be no changing his mind. He had seen her for what she really was: not a devastating twister, but the beginning of a mere downward spiral. Naraku would let her fall to the ground and take her life, and Sesshomaru knew that nothing could be done to stray the path of her fate.

"I misjudged you," she said resignedly, pulling a feather from her hair.

He did not answer – both of them understood that she had gravely misjudged her own determination and his attitude. Whatever she'd been thinking, she had created an aspect of him that clearly did not exist.

As she soared away, rejected and nearly defeated, she grumbled under her breath: "Fool." She looked him in the face as she said it, but he wondered if she aimed more of the sentiment back toward herself than she wanted to admit.

He also wondered if he'd be seeing her again.

.

 _Nobody's gonna come and save you,_

 _We've pulled too many false alarms._

.


	6. Part Six: Kouga and Kagome

**Part Six:** Kouga/Kagome

* * *

Kouga stood on shaky legs, looking down at a collapsed Kagome, curled up inside the Robe of the Fire Rat and clutching the kitsune child to her chest. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and drowning, and the events of the last twenty minutes flew through his mind's eye. It had all happened so fast, in retrospect.

The way he woke up smelling like dog, Kagome's delicately concerned face floating above him. For a moment he'd thought he was dreaming of her until his eyes caught a wider sight and realized his brothers and the kid were hovering as well. He tried to ignore them, focusing on Kagome's soft voice, the sound of sunlight if sunlight could make sound, therapeutic on his ringing ears. He could no longer tune out the world when the mutt returned to the cave.

Instead of thanking the hanyou, he turned to Kagome, pulling her hands into his. His legs ached and his pain rendered him vulnerable, emotionally as well as physically. Her soft skin soothed him, and he allowed himself the moment of wanting and having that would be ripped from him soon enough.

Inuyasha left a moment later, chasing an insect and leaving Kagome with him once again. He was grateful, and he closed his eyes, listening for her twinkling voice and comforting heartbeat.

The next thing he remembered was a sudden flare of suffocating heat and Kagome's bloodcurdling scream. "What's wrong?!" he yelled, reaching for her as best he could with his uncooperative limbs. _Useless_ , he griped to himself, realizing the heat must have been caused by one of Renkotsu's explosions. As he sat up, he could see her, alive and whole at the cave opening, but the relief was fleeting. "I'll _kill_ him this time." He meant it, even if in the process he lost his own life. That bastard had almost burned Kagome alive.

"Don't, Koga!" she admonished, and his eyes widened. She smiled placatingly in his direction, grabbing her bow and quiver. "You're too badly hurt."

He wanted to grab her, pull her back – the explosions would rip away her smile for good, the smile that could end wars – and his entire body screamed when a jet of flame reached across the canyon, but still he could not reach her – and then a silver and red blur flew into the cave ahead of the blast, Kagome in its arms.

Inuyasha laid his haori over Kagome and Shippou with a scoff. "You two should wear it. You can't depend on that wolf to protect you."

Koga grit his teeth. "Keep your hands off of him! He's after my jewel shards. I should handle him." _You're right,_ he thought bitterly. _I can't protect them. But you can. Take them and run._

"Idiot. If he gets your jewel shards, we're all fucked," InuYasha rolled his eyes.

Before Koga could argue, he had already leaped into the river of flame. Ginta and Hakkaku watched at the edge of the cave, watching for imminent danger. As a blast headed straight for them, they dove back, taking Kagome along with them. Kagome had spread her arms like wings, stretching the Robe of the Fire Rat wide enough to cover them all from the blast.

"What do we do?" Hakkaku whined.

"He's going to come over here any minute, and we're all still wounded!" Ginta finished.

Kouga watched as Kagome's eyes sought a quick solution, and his heart ached. Her cleverness had always been something he admired about her, and he fought the urge to reach for her. "Quick," she said. "Everyone lay down. Play dead. We'll strike when he gets close enough." She looked at Kouga for confirmation.

He nodded and laid back fully, the others following suit. Kagome laid down beside him, and he made sure to pull the robe over her and the kid to protect them from any further damage. Then, he splayed out, feet protruding closest to the edge of the cave, one arm protectively laid across Kagome. It was not quite what he'd had in mind as far as touching her, but it'd have to do.

When Renkotsu approached, Kouga used the speed gifted to him by the jewel, kicking up his leg to knock the asshole off balance. But then, he'd pulled fresh bombs out of his pack, and Kouga's heart stopped. _Fuck. The cave is too small. It'll take everyone, even her under the robe._ He barely listened to Renkotsu's babbling, but his instincts catalyzed an adrenaline rush when a flame appeared in the hands of his opponent, and he pushed his entire body to land a kick that fatally landed Renkotsu in the river.

Kouga's breath left him as Renkotsu dodged the attack, holding the flame close – much too close, she was going to die – and he could hear her pleading with the madman over the sounds of his laughs, but it was too late they were all far gone – but then for the second time, a telltale silver blur had arrived just in time. He could feel what was about to happen, and time slowed down, every second becoming a minute and everything moved at an excruciating slow speed.

"Inuyasha!" Kagome cried happily, and Kouga made eye contact with him, nodding. The years in between this gesture and Inuyasha's signal blew a hole through Kouga's gut: he knew his next action was going to break Kagome's heart, and he savored the centuries turned milliseconds before he did it, while she was still happy.

"Do it wolf!" Inuyasha yelled, and Kouga sprung up without hesitation, punting Renkotsu in the hanyou's direction.

"He's up again, mutt!" and he regretted the words as Inuyasha, sans his protective haori, dove into the inferno with explosives strapped to his side. He held his breath, waiting for the combustion to swallow ally and enemy alike. The resulting geyser shot high into the air, above the lip of the canyon.

Kouga stood on shaky legs, looking down at a collapsed Kagome, curled up inside the Robe of the Fire Rat and clutching the kitsune child to her chest. She looked up at him, her eyes wide and drowning, and the events of the last twenty minutes flew through his mind's eye. It had all happened so fast, in retrospect.

He approached her gently, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. He could chalk this up to much of his own fault: he'd been too weak, too slow, too obliging. But he hadn't had much of a choice. She sniffed and he laid a hand on her shoulder, feeling her breathing start to shake beneath his fingers. She put her own hand atop his and squeezed. "Do you think he… he..?"

Kouga smiled and pulled her up onto her feet, brushing her cheek with his index finger. He longed to hold her tightly in his arms, to comfort her, but he settled for small gestures. He could not compete with a dead man, and that was his atonement. Wanting, but not having.

"Let's go look," he said.

She nodded, still sniffling, and walked away from him.

.

 _I was the one you always dreamed of_

 _You were the one I tried to draw_

.


	7. Part Seven: Naraku and Kikyou

**Part Seven:** Naraku/Kikyou

* * *

Kikyou laid eyes on him as the dust settled, spitting his name at his feet: "Naraku."

"Kikyou," he returned, taking the first step into their usual dance. "It's been awhile."

He grinned and bragged about his new body, and Kikyou glared, finding his cockiness to be absolutely unchanged. She narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him: his body appeared stronger, covered in spiked armor, menacing to anyone who could not see the truth. Though he held his shoulders more confidently, poised like a proud king, she looked into the eye in his torso that swiveled wildly, giving away the squirming toil of the demons compounded within.

"You put up a barrier and hid within Mt. Hakurei. That's a lot of effort to put into a body that's just for show. What were you up to?" she growled, malice painted on her lips.

His smile grew wider. "You're very astute, Kikyou."

"Kagura left with something in her possession before the mountain fell." She drew her bow, comfortable in her safety. With her Sacred Arrow in hand, and love in his heart, she confidently stared him down, demanding answers. "What is your true aim?"

The glint of his smile drew in her gaze, his eyes boring through hers with tempered passion, and his poison tongue dripped words of cruel affection: "You came all this way just to ask that?" The pleasure coating his throat curdled her stomach. "Round and round goes the wheel of fate… Spinning and weaving a read thread."

She inhaled, wishing she could feel her lungs instead of a hardened silt cavity, and tightened her grip on the bow. Her mind swam as his words wound around her, explaining his scheme to lure her to his feet, and her stance almost faltered when those words colored blood red tied her up inside and out, holding her prisoner just as he'd intended.

"Humans call this 'fate,' or destiny…" his voice called to her, resonated within her, drawing out the incantation she'd woven into a personal commandment: "Once the threads of fate are tangled, they cannot be undone."

"Only the _weak_ utter such nonsense…" _If I am so weak, then why do you love me –_ "The truly powerful create destiny for themselves. But, you _wish_ to know my aim? Then I'll tell you…" The way he paused kept her hopeful, kept her strong, how he wholly regarded her for that moment. "What it is I must do here." He lifted one arm, lengthening a spine attached to his bracer made of bone, slicing it through the air and decisively slicing her bow in half.

A sound of dismay, a sound she did not authorize fell through her teeth and she stumbled backwards. _But you love me. Please tell me you love me._

She fell to her knees, looking down at the wound he inflicted – _you're not supposed to be able to do this; not again –_ and realized it mirrored her fatality from all those years ago.

"You underestimated me, Kikyou," he spoke in a low voice, as if she were still his lover, as if he had not done this. "You came here thinking you were _safe_ … That Onigumo's love would protect you, and that I would not touch you. Even now, I feel nothing."

 _Liar._ She couldn't help the irrational, emotional thought from surfacing before she worked it out. His whole plan, what he sent Kagura away with. She looked up into his eyes, the same crimson color of the thread wrapping around them both. _You feel pride. I hate the look in your eye, I hate that smile on your face, I hate the way that you've hurt me –_

"The ravine is full of miasma. You will disintegrate and die," he said, a gentle grin playing across his face.

 _Please, just tell me…_ "This is your grave." _Tell me you love me._

She saw it coming, the bow of their final dance; his grotesquely grown hand sped toward her; part of her wanted to run and part of her wanted to close her eyes and give up, but it was too fast and she made neither decision before his sharpened fingers speared through her skin and cracked it wide open, throwing her from the cliffside.

In a final moment before her descent, through the gargling of the pain she remembered more than felt, she caught his eyes.

 _I wish that you loved me._

.

 _You try to hit me just to hurt me,_

 _So you leave me feeling dirty_

' _Cause you can't understand._

.


	8. Part Eight: Inuyasha and Kagome

**Part Eight:** Inuyasha & Kagome

* * *

The stars twinkled above them against a deep indigo sky, and Kagome pulled her knees further into her chest as she absentmindedly twisted her fingers through blades of dewy grass and ripped them from the ground. It used to be, under the stars she and Inuyasha would put aside their quarrels and their baggage and just sit. Maybe, if they were lucky, they'd talk a little, gentle and somewhat vulnerable. They'd temporarily set aside their battle armor and just be the people beneath; but, not tonight.

His eyes looked out, not up, and she wondered if he even remembered she sat beside him or if his thoughts had consumed him completely.

The naive child she used to be thought that things would improve upon Kikyou's death, that the healing process would begin for both of them. Even in the short two days since it had happened, she'd learned that she had been completely wrong. Tears pricked behind her eyes and her stomach lurched for the thousandth time since they'd been sitting here.

Everything that worked against them kept running through her mind: his love for someone else, his obligation to someone else, the demon trying to kill them all, her never-ending homesickness, the tests she'd never pass, the lives she'd never have. It all crashed down around her while the love of her life sat oblivious a foot away, and hopelessness flooded from the top of her skull all the way down through her toes. Instead of weighing her down, it tickled her nerves and she grew lighter than she'd been in days, weeks, months.

She glanced over at Inuyasha, wondering against all reason if he'd noticed her change in attitude. When he continued to stare off in the distance forlornly, she couldn't help but drop her head between her knees and try to silence the quickly pulsing breaths resonating through her body.

"Kagome?" he asked, and she realized she must have made sound anyways, and she pursed her lips as she looked up at him. When she met his eyes, they were full of sadness and pity and gentility.

 _Ridiculous_ , she thought, and she couldn't squash it down anymore, so the grin spread across her face and her abs capsized as the giggles rolled through her throat.

Inuyasha's face contorted into a strange combination of surprise, confusion, and fear, and for some reason that made her laugh harder. "Kagome, what the hell? Are you sick or something?"

She shook her head, the tears that had been teasing her for days finally spilling out of her eyes. "No, it's just…" she wheezed, gasping for breath. "It's so stupid!"

"What's stupid?" he asked slowly, brows furrowing further into the bridge of his nose.

"Everything. All of it. I don't know." She took a moment to steady her breathing, to collect her thoughts, to not say the insensitive words at the tip of her tongue. "I'm supposed to be in school. You're supposed to be dead, or asleep, or whatever. Sango is supposed to be dead, and Miroku is terminal. She's where she's supposed to be too, y'know? And I feel so… _guilty._ Because I'm not sad, not the way I should be."

She couldn't stop the smile, the gesture that should have been a grimace, but all her tact had gone out the window. It was too late. Always, too late. Fury had lit behind his eyes, and his mouth hung open for a split second before he rose and yelled, "What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

"I don't care!" She yelled back on her feet just as quickly, then repeated, more quietly: "I don't care. I'm tired."

"You are _not_ saying what I think you're saying. You're not saying that…" He clenched his fists tightly, glaring at her, daring her to contradict him.

"I don't know. Maybe I am."

His chest shuddered, as though he wanted to breathe but couldn't, as though his rage turned his ribs into iron. When he spoke, his words were a barely audible growl spit past his tongue. "You're saying she deserved to die. _Again."_

Her smile faltered; the bravado of her laughing fit had already begun to fade and a hollow feeling of disgust creeped in behind it. Still, she'd already said it, and the last thing she wanted was to back down now.

"I'm saying she was already dead. All of you were. And you're all going back, except this time I'm getting dragged along too. There's no way out. We're not going to win." She didn't wait for his response; she just fell back to the ground and pulled her knees up to her chest, twisting her fingers into the grass and looking out instead of up.

He must have sensed that persisting would only make it worse, because from her periphery she saw him retreating accompanied by the sound of the pads of his bare feet on the ground.

She knew when he returned to the others, his anger would initiate a string of questions from Miroku and Sango. And even though he'd tell them it was all her fault, that he hadn't done anything wrong, he'd never tell them what she said. He'd never make her the villain, never reveal her grotesque thoughts to her friends. Real sobs worked their way through her chest and spilled out of her mouth, raw and ugly and demonic.

Her stomach twisted into knots as her own words rang wildly in her ears, but more than anything, she wished everything were different. She wished she'd stayed through the well, that she'd never loved or lived or died. Part of her brain told her _you're alive stop being dramatic_ , but a much deeper part of her brain said _your academic career is dead and Naraku will kill you anyway; there is no way out._ With a painful gasping breath, she pounded her fists into the grass and prayed for the end to come soon.

.

 _I'll make the most of all the sadness;_

 _You'll be a bitch because you can._

.


	9. Part Nine: Kagome and Kikyou

**Part Nine** **:** Kagome & Kikyou

* * *

Kagome followed the soul collectors up the mountain, and when she arrived, found herself entranced in the sparkling waterfall for a moment before she looked down to find Kikyou lying in the clear pool below. At the sight of her peaceful-looking face, all the pent up emotions Kagome had been suppressing bubbled up into a knot behind her hyoid bone: the anger, the bitterness, the jealousy. _How dare she lie there, while I have to stand and bear the weight? Why can't it be me and not her, lying there waiting for my last breath?_

But in the breadth of a moment, she caught herself and took a breath, forcing the intrusive thoughts away. Kikyou hadn't asked to be fatally attacked, and honestly, her own wish for death frightened her to the depths of her bones. So, she knelt and watched as the sunset reflected the warm colors of dusk against Kikyou's comatose form, and wondered what it was she was supposed to be doing here. "Kikyou… Are you alive?" she asked, mostly to herself – the padlock of guilt that kept her ugly feelings at bay needed to know and needed to care, but it was less altruistic than she'd wished.

"Her life is fading," said a voice behind her, and she jumped, surprised to find a pair of twins standing behind her. "The miasma is spreading."

"Miasma?" she asked, the taste of bile flooding her mouth and turning her stomach. Upon further inspection, Kagome could see the unmistakable coils of Naraku's poison seeping from Kikyou's wound and a new wave of guilt nearly caused her to vomit. _This is what I was jealous of? A pain I'd never wish on anyone?  
_

"Please choose…" one of the girls said. She could not tell which. "Whether or not you will save her."

"What do you mean, 'choose?' What's happening to her?" Kagome asked, the feeling of a large weight settling onto her sternum. As the twins explained Kikyou's encounter with Naraku and her long exposure to the poison, the dread filling her lungs was strangely reminiscent of the sensation she experienced right before an algebra test and it made her uneasier still, until:

"The only one who can save her is you."

The only one. Her guilt was suddenly replaced by a new determination. Everything she'd felt, everything she'd said, all the damage she'd done to Kikyou and her memory could be fixed, right here, right now, and she was the only one who could do it.

"Her life is in your hands."

 _So they want me to choose…_ "What must I do to save her?"

"You choose to save her?"

The second inquiry lit a fire of indignation and pride that tingled in her fingertips. "Of course! I'm the only one who can, right?"

The twins nodded. "All you have to do is touch her, and the miasma will be purified."

They told her something else, about how hard it was to hang onto Kikyou's soul now, how she had to hurry, but she was focused on stripping her luggage from her person and climbing down into the water to reach Kikyou.

The instant her skin hit the surface, her nerve endings felt as though they'd been stung by an infinite number of needles – it hurt so deeply that it itched. She hadn't realized how potent and damaging Naraku's poison was, and the reality of touching Kikyou seemed further away than she'd first thought. Pushing through the pain, she dipped her hand in the water and reached for Kikyou's wound when a large sucking motion pulled her under until she was completely submerged.

Miasma swirled up around her and clouded the water into an inky black, and the desperation of the situation sunk into her skin as the itch turned to a burn. She laid her hand against Kikyou's bare skin, running her fingers along the cracks, to no effect. _All I had to do was touch her, right? So why…_ She looked up, and lifted her hand to catch the sprinkling of dirt falling around her. When it landed on her skin, it glowed the bright pink she'd come to associate with hers and Kikyou's spiritual power.  
From somewhere behind her, she heard the voices of the twins tell her: "That's soil from her grave. Your hand purified it. Please rub that into her wound."

Kagome nodded, determined to succeed, and pressed her soil-covered hand toward the crack in her abdomen. A whirlpool of miasma flew up around her, pushing her back away from Kikyou and lighting every nerve ending on fire, but she held on anyway the way a child holds on to two opposing magnets, determined to make them touch.

Then out of nowhere, everything fell dark, and she could not see. However, just as her eyes began to adjust to the dark, Kikyou's memories churned quickly in her mind's eye. While Kagome could not quite see the detail – she allotted too much focus against the force of the miasma to concentrate on that – Kikyou's residual emotions ran through her blood and circulated through her heart, and Kagome wondered how she ever thought her own feelings could trump this, how she could ever have expected them to have priority over the hauntings of a woman ripped from her grave.

 _Let go,_ she whispered. She felt Kikyou's soul running into a wall and falling back through the cycle of betrayal and anguish and failure, and knew it was slowly killing her all over again. _Let go, and let me heal you. Hang in there, we can do this!_

The cracks in Kikyou's torso began to fade beneath the pads of Kagome's fingers, and Kagome smiled. _Inuyasha wants to see you again, and you want to see him too, right?_ Kikyou opened her eyes, and Kagome knew they'd done it. At the same time as the thought occurred, a ripple effect cleared the miasma around them, and Kagome grinned brighter in spite of Kikyou's blank expression. Suddenly drained of any energy, Kagome collapsed on top of Kikyou, holding her tightly in her arms, happy for the warmth of success surrounding them.

When she came to, Kagome was lying on the rocks by the edge of the basin soaking wet, and she shivered, noting that it had fallen dark and the heat of the sunset had long since faded. Soul collectors flew overhead, and she sat up to find Kikyou standing with her back to her, just as soaked through as she herself was. "Kikyou!" she called, before she could stop herself.  
Kikyou turned to look at her with tired eyes, the kind of eyes Kagome would have expected to find from someone who'd given up, not someone who'd just beaten death. "Why did you save me?" she asked, and Kagome's cheeks flushed with an irrational embarrassment.  
In the strange, pathetic way Kagome always sought for Kikyou's approval, she answered, "Well, you're the one that called me here, right?"

"You had a choice," she said. "To save me or not."

"It wasn't really a matter of choice," Kagome said. And it was true: there was no weighing of the options, there was no hesitation; there was only doing. There was only one right choice. "If there's a person before me that I could save, and I'm told I'm the only one who can save her, then naturally I would choose to save her!"

"Then I won't thank you. Since you made the choice."

The angry and bitter fire lit in Kagome's stomach again when the words hit her ears, and she had to clench her fists to keep her tongue in check.

"Did you see something while you were in the water?" Kikyou asked, and Kagome sensed a hint of hopefulness in her voice, which caught her off guard.

"See something?" She asked. She couldn't remember anything but the poison.

"If you don't remember, so be it," Kikyou said, deflating a little. She began to walk away, without even a glance backward.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Kagome yelled after her. She had to stay, she couldn't leave without first seeing –

"Inuyasha will be here soon, looking for you." For a moment, Kagome a dawning of understanding for Kikyou she'd never had before. It was a glimpse of the woman behind the hard outer shell, maybe the person she'd been before all this happened. Or maybe, it was the person Kikyou had never been or allowed herself to be. "I will go into hiding for a time. I must restore my strength."

And though Kagome called after her, begged her to stay, she never faltered during her retreat into the shadowed treeline. When she was out of sight, Kagome sat by the waterfall and waited and wondered. There was a quiet jealousy Kikyou revealed tonight that Kagome wished she could fully understand.

She replayed their short conversation over and over in her head until finally, she realized: she didn't want Inuyasha to see her as vulnerable as she had been. He'd seen her physically vulnerable sure, but something about _I won't thank you_ haunted Kagome. She reflected on her own shameful desire for the peace that could be found in death, and wondered if maybe that's what Kikyou had wanted, and seeing Inuyasha so soon after her lapse in strength would have been too much for her.

 _I won't thank you._ Not for the choice to bring her back to living, to suffering, to fighting, or for the choice to assuage Kagome's guilt, rather than to do right by Kikyou.

Kagome had made her choice out of instinct, out of what she thought was compassion, but was it the right one?

.

 _Go cry about it, why don't you?_

.


	10. Part Ten: Miroku and Sango

**Part Ten:** Miroku & Sango

* * *

Miroku knew from the moment that she released the Hiraikotsu that everything was about to go wrong. A dread in his gut begged her to stay put, to keep out of it, but he knew his Sango and he knew it was futile.

A small swelling of hope inflated in his stomach as her weapon conquered potent twisters of miasma and broke through Naraku's body, but the purple cloud following it back to her person immediately popped it again. When he caught himself thinking about how beautiful she looked with her hair blown free in a purple wind, he became sickened with himself. _Where is her mask?_

He prayed that Kagome's arrow would be enough, that it could purify the miasma in time, but Naraku's voice chimed in triumphantly behind them as Kagome's arrow purified Kirara's demon form and Sango began to fall, and his hope was forsaken. "It's too late. Sango has been completely consumed by the miasma. You should never have given your mask, your only means of protection to Rin."

 _Why?_ He screamed, or at least he thought he did. _Why would she do that?_

"It was a foolish decision, even if you meant to repent for your sin."

 _What sin? Sango what did you_ do?

He pushed his body up to run, to reach her in time before she fell through another layer of Naraku's skin, and finally his voice cooperated: "Sango!" As he reached the edge of the pit, she had already begun her descent too far to be recovered, and with the hesitation of only his failing body, he jumped into the pit alongside her.

Though the ground had sealed above them, Miroku could still hear Naraku's voice resonate in the flesh all around them: "The least you could do is allow them to spend their last moments alive in privacy." Miroku wondered if they could hear it by Naraku's design, because after that, the cavern they found themselves in was absolutely silent.

He looked up from the ground – or whatever it was – and saw her lying a ways away, motionless. "Sango!" He called again, pulling himself up to run to her once more, and fell to her side. He fought the pull of his Wind Tunnel, trying to quiet the whistling that pierced his ears. "Sango, why did you…"

She finally – _finally –_ opened her eyes, and spoke softly, "So I failed." He would have sworn his heart shattered into a million pieces that cut through every nerve in his body. _Why indeed… It was all to save me: a lost cause._

"I apologize for leaving you alone," he said, just as softly as she'd spoken. This was not the time for confrontation, not when the end of his life was so near. The last moments of the love of his life would be devoted to affection, decades of what he would have given her all rolled into one breath.

"Houshi-sama…" she whispered, clutching his robes in her shaking fist. "Please… Take me with you." _No, how can I, how can you ask me –_ "Promise me we'll die together."

In that split second, he imagined if their situation had been reversed, if he'd had to watch her slowly die the way he'd watch her slowly heal since they met, if he'd had to face a life of being stronger without her. _How could I ask her to live, when I know I could not?_

He scooped her up into his arms and cradled her close to his chest, her name slipped past his teeth in place of a promise, in place of a vow.

They spoke no more; there was nothing else to say. There were no more empty promises, no more wishes, no more sweet words, and the silence of Naraku's flesh swallowed them whole.

.

 _My Dear, we're slow dancing in a burning room…_

.


	11. Part Eleven: Naraku and Kagome

**Part Eleven:** Naraku & Kagome

* * *

Kagome curled in on herself against the darkness suffocating her. The air was freezing cold and pitch black, except for the pink glow of the arrow-pierced Shikon Jewel hovering in front of her. She used to associate that color pink with Kikyou and herself, and even held comfort in it, but in this moment she couldn't think of a more grotesque hue.

The loneliness of her situation coated her bones like liquid nitrogen, and she couldn't stop shivering and shuddering, though no tears came.

"Wish upon the Shikon Jewel to return to your world, or you will spend the rest of eternity alone in this darkness." The voice of the jewel rang through her skull, and her mouth fell open to answer it before she could stop herself.

She shook her head and squeezed her lips shut, willing it to let her be.

 _The jewel didn't grant your real wish, did it?_

If she made a wish, it would be twisted, and the jewel would survive on the back of her sacrifice. She knew it, and tried to shut everything else out but that thought.

 _My real wish, you say? Yes… All I wanted was Kikyou's heart. It appears I won't be able to join Kikyou in death, either._

A resounding pang of pity and guilt ached in her joints, imagining Naraku alone in the afterlife when everything had gone so irrevocably wrong for him. All it had been was an innocent wish that sparked a war and trapped everyone else inside it.

 _The wish the Shikon Jewel forced me to make will be granted when I die. In the end, I was but its instrument._

How unfair… And how unfair that something so simple took her hostage now, imprisoned her in her own fear of solitude.

 _The Shikon Jewel will never go away. Even if I am destroyed…_

Naraku had told her, but she hadn't listened. Was this death, or something worse? Should she have succumbed to death by Naraku's hand? Was he really just saving her, in the end? No, there was something else he knew: _This will end as a battle of two souls…_

At last, she felt tears leak down her face, and she held on tighter to her bow and quiver, hoping it would relieve some of the pressure building in her lungs. She'd been right all those months ago, in a fit of jealous rage; her life was over. She'd never make it out of this alive.

Vaguely, she heard a voice, a mere whisper in the darkness – had Inuyasha come for her? Would it be alright? The voice became clearer, and it seemed to be chanting something if only she could make it out…

 _Fate cannot be denied._

 _She will give into the fear, Naraku will awaken, and a new battle of souls will begin. A battle that will never end._

 _Fate_ cannot _be denied._

All her hopes smashed violently around her, like a tsunami crashing on a rocky shore. Inuyasha wasn't coming, and the only way to escape this desolation was to seek comfort in the other person the jewel had manipulated just as much as her, no matter how abhorrent he was.

"Aren't you going to make a wish? Do you choose to spend this eternity in darkness?" When she didn't speak, the Shikon's voice growled, "Answer me, Kagome!"

She swallowed the lump in her throat and took a shaky breath, looking back into the light. "I am… I'm going to wish. I wish I wasn't alone."

The jewel's energy pulsated around her arrow, and as it rippled it threw her backwards through space, an impossibly bright white light surrounding her until she came to a halt standing in front of a massive spider web.

From the center, Naraku opened his eyes and smiled, pulling all of the threads together until his body was solid again, and he stepped forward with open arms. Kagome – against every instinct in her body – walked into them, and he closed them around her. His embrace was clammy and detestable, but she much preferred it to the cold of the darkness.

"You're here. You made the wish to be with me," he whispered into her ear.

She nodded, looking up into his eyes. They were gentler now somehow, perhaps resigned to eternity. "Yes."

"It was always meant to be you and I." He smiled forlornly, and she knew – he longed for things to be different, he longed to spend every tomorrow with Kikyou the way she longed to spend every tomorrow with Inuyasha. They were well-matched in disappointment.

"Always," she said, finally taking him into her arms as well. What good would it do to hold back anymore?

He pressed his lips into her forehead, and she shuddered, shaking off the uneasy feeling, when he asked: "Are you ready?"

She pulled away, knowing they could not stay in an embrace forever; that's not what their forever was built for. He let go of her, and she noticed that her quiver was heavy with a full stock of arrows, slung over the traditional white haori tucked into a red hakama. She smiled a bit to herself. _You're glad I look like her, aren't you?_ But she didn't ask, as their battle was inevitable, and she supposed that there would be time to talk at some other time along infinity. "Whenever you are."

.

 _Don't you think we oughta know by now?_

 _Don't you think we shoulda learned somehow?_

.


End file.
